“No; that we won’t!” put in the General.
“And I’m sure Drusilla thinks with us,” added Anna.
“Indeed I do,” acknowledged Drusa.
“So you see you are outvoted, my dear boy,” chuckled the General.
“Oh, as to myself,” said Dick, “I know when I’m well off, and I had a great deal rather stay here. It was for the ladies’ sake I spoke.”
“Then here we stay for the present, my children.”
“And so I must write and tell my housekeeper that she must cover up the furniture and close the rooms for the winter, as we are not going to Washington this season. But, my dear uncle, I hope we shall go early in the spring.”
“We shall go on the very first favorable opportunity, my dear, you may rely on that,” answered the veteran.
And then the sight of Drusilla’s unopened packet of foreign letters suggested a plan that he immediately proposed.
“And I’ll tell you what, my dears,” he said, “we have none of us seen Europe yet. Anna and Dick were to have gone there for a wedding tour, but they would not go so far away from the old man.”